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Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai. The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus and other books of the Bible, and the Quran. According to JewishChristian, and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Mount Sinai is regarded as the birthplace of Torah Judaism.

The biblical Mount Sinai is one of the most important sacred places in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions.

The mountain of God is first mentioned when God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush. God told Moses, "when you have freed the people from Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." In biblical theology, Mount Sinai is the place of divine revelation.

Some modern biblical scholars now believe that the Israelites would have crossed the Sinai peninsula in a direct route, rather than detouring to the southern tip (assuming that they did not cross the eastern branch of the Red Sea/Reed Sea), and therefore look for the biblical Mount Sinai elsewhere.

According to some scholars, the Song of Deborah suggests that God dwelt at Mount Seir, so many scholars favor a location in Nabatea (modern Arabia). Alternatively, the biblical descriptions of Sinai can be interpreted as describing a volcano, and so a small number of scholars have considered equating Sinai with locations in northwestern Saudi Arabia, such as Jabal al-Lawz; there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula. However, there is no Jewish tradition of the geographical location of Mount Sinai it seems that its exact location as obscure already in the time of the monarchy.


Source: Wikipedia

Encyclopaedia Judaica Second Edition